Unfair to public workers

AN article that appeared in your paper on January 2 claims that the payment of increments to public sector workers such as teachers, gardaí and nurses was part of a deal made between the unions and the previous government in return for productivity measures.

This is not true. The presence of an incremental scale for public sector workers is part of the pay structure which has been in existence for decades prior to any deal between the unions and the previous government. Workers start at the bottom rung of the scale and receive modest increases as their years of service progress. Interfering with the increments paid to public sector workers would be unfair and unjust as it would target those workers at the lower grades.

Emer Nelligan